Sweden's Grafair has taken delivery of a Citation Ultra for air ambulance missions. Already an operator of the Citation II and V, the company is also set to acquire a PC-12 in September following EASA's recent single engine commercial clearance.

“It is hard to find the right aircraft because we need a big cargo door,” says CEO Johan Emmoth. “We found one such aircraft in the US with the door we needed. It looks as though we are going to add more Hawker 800s too, but it is a little early to talk about that.

“I think it is interesting to look at SET ops in Scandinavia, because there are a lot of mountainous areas that are quite hard to reach. The PC-12 is a specialist at getting down on those small air strips. When you look at operational costs and taxi flights, it is not that much cheaper to go with the PC-12 over something like an Excel. The PC-12 is expensive comparatively, though the Citation is faster.

“To be honest I just think that a lot of people believe the PC-12 is a cool aircraft,” continues Emmoth. “It has a Spitfire look about it. In the city you see people going around in big SUVs when they don't need to because it is a trend, and maybe the PC-12 is a trend too. It is a fresh breeze, something new that you couldn't operate before. Although it only has one engine, I think fewer people are worried about that these days.”

Charter flying in the region has been busy. Emmoth admits that he is unable to match operators in southern Europe and fly 800 hours, but business is buoyant nevertheless in the wake of some challenging years. Increasing hours on a VFR amphibious Caravan is another aim for the Grafair team.

“There are a lot of executives moving around in Scandinavia,” he continues. “Everything and everyone is on the move and generating business. We own a ramp, hangar and FBO at Arlanda so that is very good for us. It simplifies the process for our clients; the only problem is that it is slightly further away from the city.”

Grafair, whose Stockholm Bromaa jet centre was victorious in the EBAN FBO Survey in 2014, is close to completing a large hangar at the airport which has been under construction since 2009.